


Bastard

by DownOnThePharm



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Ace Rimmer - Freeform, Angst, Holo!Rimmer - Freeform, Jealousy, M/M, Nano-Rimmer, Red Dwarf Series VIII, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 09:29:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16595267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DownOnThePharm/pseuds/DownOnThePharm
Summary: Nano-Rimmer’s thoughts when Holo-Rimmer comes back, saves the day, and gets the guy.  Angst abounds.Poor Nano-Rimmer.





	Bastard

You bastard.

You floppy-haired, swaggering, arrogant, self-assured, utter bastard. You dimension-jumping golden git.

Why did you have to come back? 

We could have been so happy, he and I. We had been growing closer, and not just because we shared a prison cell. 

When I was, well, resurrected, I suppose you’d call it, I knew him only as the annoying little gimboid with the cherubic face with whom I had been both unfortunate and fortunate enough to room. I soon realized, however, that this older version of him is far different. Steadier. More mature. More adult. Oh, he plagued me, of course, and we had our share of tiffs, but the vicious screaming matches of the past, the raging arguments we had before I? you? we? cocked up the drive plate repair were absent. 

I suppose I have you to thank for his treatment of me. He reached out to me and drew me into his little circle, his posse of friends. For the first time in my life, I was included, not excluded. At long last, I was part of a group, even if it was only as your substitute. For once in my life, I finally belonged. 

Is it any wonder I fell in love? 

I believed that he felt the same for me, bloody, deluded fool that I am. 

When everything went to hell and the microbes began consuming the ship, and we all thought we were going to die, I vowed to go down fighting at his side. If I had to die again, at least it would be with the man I love. 

We weren’t going to die, though. Not on my watch. I would save us. For once in my miserable life, I would be a hero, and my beloved would throw himself into my arms, overcome with pride and gratitude and love.

Then the formula for the antidote was destroyed in my hands.

Then we were trapped, cornered like rats as _Red Dwarf_ disintegrated around us. We were going to die.

Then you showed up. 

_Deus ex machina_ bastard.

You strode into the drive room where we huddled together, waiting to die. Tall and handsome and impossibly confident. Heroic in your bomber jacket and boots. I hated you on sight. 

What a guy. 

He saw you, and he called out to you. Called out my name. 

He ran to you and flung himself into your waiting arms, laughing and sobbing and calling you by my name. I had to watch as he embraced you. Buried his face in your shoulder. Lifted his face to yours and kissed you. Ran his hands through that ridiculous blond hair while kissing your face. Your bloody, accursed face. My face.

Usurping bastard.

Space Hero that you are, of course you had the matter well in hand. As you hugged him tightly to you with one arm, you produced a vial of nanobots seemingly from nowhere with the other hand, with the sleight of hand of a master magician. Purring reassurances in his ear, you set them loose. Voila - problem solved. Infection cured. Ship repaired. All hail the conquering hero. 

Smegging bastard.

Now, here we sit in the freshly reconstructed Parrots, celebrating. 

Celebrating. 

What I have to celebrate, I don’t know. I had to watch as he held you as the two of you revealed your secret to Kryten, Cat, and Kochanski. As you shimmered and changed from Golden Boy to my blue-clad doppelgänger. As, both laughing and crying, he kissed that hideous H that brands your - my - forehead. As he called you by my name. As I realized that he was never truly mine. As I realized that I had always been a placeholder. A substitute. A bookmark to keep your place in his life. A living replica of his dead love. 

In his eyes, my living, breathing, human flesh and blood can’t hold a candle to your hard-light form.

Candle. Light. Ha. 

I wish I had never been resurrected.

I wish I had died again.

I wish you had never come back.

Bastard.


End file.
